Lividian Publications is a passion project based on Brian James Freeman’s twenty years of experience overseeing the publication of more than 300 collectible Limited Edition books by some of the biggest New York Times bestselling authors working today. Read more on the About page.

Lividian Publications started life as LetterPress Publications. Why? Well…

I’m terrible at naming things, so LetterPress Publications was meant to be a placeholder when I started my Patreon in 2017. My plan was to actually print some letterpress chapbooks for my supporters each year, using an actual manual press I had spotted for sale. I needed a publisher name to go on these chapbooks, and I spent six months brainstorming names with absolutely no luck. None of the options sounded good. So, I finally said, “This is a small thing that’s probably going to be seen by 20 or 25 people if I’m lucky, so the name doesn’t matter all that much.” And I kind of just accepted that my fallback name of LetterPress Publications was good enough for that purpose.

What I didn’t know was that hundreds of people were going to sign up for my Patreon. After talking to the seller of the press I’d been looking at, I realized I didn’t have the time to hand produce that many chapbooks. Not with three kids at home and my work at Cemetery Dance. Plus, the goal of the Patreon was to give me a reason to get some writing done, which I wouldn’t have time for if I was always in the garage printing and collating chapbooks.

I still hadn’t thought of a name I loved, but I figured: “Well, this is just for my Patreon supporters, the name doesn’t really matter.”

What I didn’t expect was for Stephen King to accept my proposal to publish a special edition of Revival. Yes, obviously I was hopeful when I prepared the proposal, but let’s be serious: we all know Stephen King gets this sort of request on a daily basis and he just has to say no to most of them otherwise every waking hour of his life would be consumed by these projects. So, I was ready for a polite “sorry, no thanks.”

Instead, I got an enthusiastic yes for Revival, which was incredible and obviously a defining moment for the press.

I scrambled to come up with a better name for the company, but I still wasn’t having much luck. There are a couple of key things to keep in mind when naming a publishing company. For example, has someone already used it for any kind of business? Even more importantly, has it been used specifically for a publishing company or an imprint? Are the domain names available? How about the social media accounts? That sort of thing.

Then King’s agent issued an agreement using the LetterPress Publications name. At that point, I didn’t want to rock the boat (and I still couldn’t think of anything better), so we just rolled with it.

By the time I was talking to Joe Hill about publishing a big matching library of his work, I knew I had to come up with a better name for the press, even though I feared that task would be even more difficult now that Revival was out in the world. I wanted to keep the logo on the spine the same, you see, which meant the new and final name had to start with the letter L.

In a way, though, that actually made things easier in the end. Knowing the first word had to start with the letter L focused my thinking. There are some fun words that start with L. One of my favorites is Leviathan, but it didn’t fit the criteria: someone had already used it for a publishing company or imprint years ago, and there were no good domain names available, etc.

While looking over my list of twenty or thirty L words I liked the sound of, I started circling back to Livid. Livid Press or Livid Publications didn’t quite have the right ring to it, but at some point it popped into my head to add the -Ian — and Lividian Publications was born. The made up word had barely been used for anything anywhere in the world, and the Lividian.com domain name was available.

It’s not a deep or meaningful story of how the name came to be, but it is the story.

A few years back, I worked on a big research project involving surveys of a few thousand collectors, plus a detailed study of resale values of certain comparable Limited Editions, and there’s a surprisingly clear line between the point where individual numbers increase collectability and the point where they no longer help.

I cannot get into the specific details because this was paid research I did for a large trade publisher that was looking into the business model (they decided not to enter the field because the margins weren’t to their liking — paying for New York office space is expensive, and they didn’t have direct sales channels which meant either creating them or selling through distributors, which take a 50% cut), but obviously I benefited from the information, too.

One thing the research turned up: specific numbers for books do make collectors more willing to purchase books they don’t necessarily want, so they can “keep” their number, which actually isn’t something I’m particularly interested in as a publisher. I’d rather folks buy the books they really want. If a full set isn’t their thing, I’m okay with that.

So, if the print run falls in the range where it’ll make the book more collectible for the collectors, I’ll definitely do that.

If we end up well into the range where numbering doesn’t reward the collectors long-term, the odds are I won’t for the reason mentioned above and a few others.

To comply with the credit card company’s terms of service, all of this information is provided on a separate, dedicated page here.

Also phrased as: “Dude, that book is selling for 4X as much on eBay, are you an idiot or something!?!?”

Yes, maybe? I guess it depends on who you ask!

Here’s the deal: how retailers price new books has always been a somewhat controversial topic. In theory, a bookseller can take a brand new $50 book and sell it for $5 or $500 if that’s what they want and what the market will accept. They’re not obligated by the publisher to sell for any set price.

I’m making absolutely no judgements here about retailers who decide to price a new and popular book based on the current market rates. I totally get the reasoning involved, and given the low margins in the bookselling business, I understand it 100%. (Why do you think Lividian Publications is extremely generous with dividing up our print runs among booksellers and then actively pointing customers toward those booksellers? I like booksellers! I think they’re important to the small press ecosystem and deserve support.)

My personal decision is this: when it’s a book that I’ve bought as a retailer to offer on the site, I’ll always sell it at retail, even if it’s selling for much higher on the second-hand market. My hope is that a lucky collector will be able to fill a gap in their collection, but I know that some of the copies are getting flipped for “easy” profits. That’s why some people have said I’m an idiot for not just marking up my copies. But you know what? I know which of my customers are buying and flipping the books (I’m in the same groups as them!), and do you know what I see those customers doing with their profits? Buying other books for their collections! So, that money is really only helping other small presses, booksellers, collectors, and sellers, which is fine by me.

Ultimately, it doesn’t hurt me to sell at the retail price. That said, I do tend to restrict these books to “one per person” because there were people buying 5 or 10 copies to flip, which kind of goes against the spirit of what I’m trying to do.

For books from outside the US, the price might be a little different than if you ordered direct because I have to factor in the exchange rate at the time I paid for them and the shipping cost to get them to the US, but there won’t be a purposeful markup to increase the profit margins.

Again, I’m making absolutely no judgement here about how other people do business, but I’ve gotten enough questions that I thought it finally needed to be addressed. I hope this information is helpful.

Collectors are responsible for notifying us of any changes to their email address. We cannot be responsible if the advance notification we send you doesn’t reach you.

As of right now, there are three “sets” of ongoing numbers/letters:

Joe Hill Lettered Editions:
Because the Joe Hill books are part of an ongoing set, the Lettered Editions are on their own little island. Collectors who purchased the most recent Joe Hill Lettered Edition from us will be offered the next one when it is ready for preorder.

Matthew Corbett Limited Editions and Lettered Editions:
Because Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series is an ongoing series, those who purchased Seven Shades of Evil directly from us will be offered the opportunity to purchase the same number or letter of the next Matthew Corbett book that we publish. These books are also on their own little island.

Please Note: Other books by Robert McCammon would not be part of this category. They would instead be in the “Everything Else” category below.

Everything Else:
The vast majority of our books are offered to the collectors who purchased the previously announced book (Joe Hill and Matthew Corbett series books excluded). So, collectors who purchased The Ferryman directly from us will be the first ones offered the next book we announce that isn’t a Joe Hill or Matthew Corbett title, with the opportunity to keep their number or letter. If a collector decides not to purchase that next book, the number or letter will belong to the person who purchases that book from us.

Transfer of Rights:
We do not have a system in place for “transferring rights” to a number or letter. That said, if Jane Smith sells #100 of Book A to John Doe, and John Doe buys Book B from us, he can request copy #100 in the “Other Notes” section during checkout. If Jane Smith doesn’t buy Book B, we’ll assign #100 to John Doe if he made the request. But if Jane Smith does buy Book B from us, she will get #100. Any deal you made is between you and the other collector, and we cannot be involved in enforcing the terms of that deal.

Please Note:
Please feel free to always include your preferred number/letter in the “Other Notes” section during checkout, so we can take that into account when processing the orders.

One of my goals for Lividian Publications is to publish beautiful collectible books while keeping the retail price as reasonable as possible.

For The Night Country, I produced the Lettered Edition the same way most small presses have for as long as I’ve been in this business. The printer made enough “book blocks” (internal guts) for the Limited Edition and the Lettered Edition, and then finished them accordingly: different bindings, endpapers, signature sheets, etc. But the insides are basically the same.

I’ve never really liked this, but being the guy who has written the spec sheets and gotten the quotes for more than three hundred Limited Edition books over the years, I certainly understand why special editions are usually done this way. Printing totally separate guts is crazy expensive because the print run is so low, and it gets even more expensive if you upgrade to nicer paper and, perhaps, full color printing.

That said, publishing the “regular” Lettered Editions differently is something I’ve really wanted to try, and I see this as a way of pushing the boundaries of what is possible for a beautiful special edition while trying to keep the retail price under control, relatively speaking.

So, for the Lettered Edition of The Chill, I worked with the same boutique printer and hand-binder who made the Lettered Editions of Revival and 20th Century Ghosts to print and bind The Chill Lettered Edition separately from the Limited Edition, just like I do for the Stephen King and Joe Hill books.

The Chill Lettered Edition was printed on the same heavy weight and textured specialty paper as those King and Hill titles, and we upgraded the entire book to full-color printing, including all the interior artwork, which only appears in B&W in the Limited Edition. (Check out the photos on the product page – the artwork is absolutely stunning in full color on this high-end paper stock!)

The final “form” of the Lettered Editions (binding and clamshell case) will be similar to The Night Country, so these will still look good together on the shelf for those of you collecting all of our Lettered Editions, but the production values for the insides of The Chill are vastly improved from The Night Country. A tremendous amount of manual labor went into producing this edition in the hopes of making it more beautiful and special than a “regular” Lettered Edition.

So, the next step in the process is to see if collectors actually like and want what we’ve done, and then we can decide how to proceed in the future.

When it’s announced that someone is publishing a new Limited Edition of a book that already had a Limited Edition, there are bound to be some strong feelings among collectors. Some people hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. Some people say “the more, the merrier” when it comes to their favorite books or authors. And for some people, it depends on how they felt about the first Limited Edition. Did they like the production values? The artwork? The publisher?

I completely understand where a publisher is coming from when they feel slighted that a book they already published in a fancy edition is now being published by someone else in a different fancy edition. It can feel like someone is saying, “Eh, that wasn’t very good, I’ll do it better.”

That’s why, when it comes to something like our Joe Hill set of matching Limited Editions, I’m trying to make it clear that our goal isn’t to “top” any of the previous editions, many of which I own and love — and some of which could never be “topped,” in my humble opinion. The goal has always been to create a big, beautiful, cohesive set of books that will look awesome on the shelf together.

So, if you ever see someone saying they hope some edition we’re publishing will “top” a previous edition, please know that I’m cringing when I read that. It’s not our objective at all.

Lividian Publications is incredibly proud to announce the Robert McCammon Library, a new hardcover series created to publish every Robert McCammon book in a unified set. We welcome fans of the marvelous Robert McCammon to join us as we begin this monumental project. We look forward to building this incredible library with all of you.

Q: What is this I hear about signed copies of Baal?

The Alabama Booksmith, Robert McCammon’s hometown bookstore, will be having a big event for the book launch and he’ll sign their copies, which they can ship worldwide, I believe. They hope to have an event for every book in the series. They are including a numbered certificate of authenticity with the copies they sell and you can receive that same number on future certs if you continue to order the series through them.

The other signed copies of Baal are being signed for supporters of Brian James Freeman’s Patreon. These supporters are on the Robert McCammon Library tier and the Lividian Tier. In addition, 50 supporters were able to order signed copies during the early bird preorder window prior to the public announcement. These copies will come with their own certificate of authenticity attesting to where they were signed. (For those who don’t know, Lividian Publications exists today because of the readers and collectors who signed up for Brian’s Patreon starting back in 2017. You can read a little bit about that here.)

Q: What is the goal of this project? Aren’t there already Limited Editions of all of these books?

A: The Robert McCammon Library is not about replacing earlier editions or attempting to “outdo” them. The desire here is to create something lasting and worthy of McCammon’s extraordinary body of work, both for collectors who want a definitive set of books in their collection and for readers who want to be able to read these stories in hardcover again and again for years to come — all while trying to keep the retail price obtainable for fans of all backgrounds. (I know that I personally, as a collector, would have budget trouble if each title in an ongoing set this large was priced like a modern day Limited Edition. )

Q: Are these Limited Editions? Trade Editions?

A: A little bit of both. These will be beautiful but affordable hardcovers that are Smyth-sewn like our Limited Editions, bound in cloth with hot foil stamping on the cover and spine, and printed on acid-free paper with a very reader-friendly page design. There will be an optional slipcase for those who like that sort of thing (we certainly do!). The print run for each book will be set within a few weeks of the book being announced, so these titles will go out of print pretty quickly. But there isn’t an exact print run planned ahead of time for each book like there is with a Limited Edition.

Q: How often will the books be published?

A: In 2026, we’ll publish the first two titles in the Robert McCammon Library, Baal and Bethany’s Sin, and then we’ll publish four more books every year after that in the order of original publication. The Night Boat, They Thirst, Mystery Walk, and Usher’s Passing are already in production for 2027. Also: our plan includes the entire Matthew Corbett series, finally published in a fully matching set. Keeping to the planned schedule is very important to us. We want folks to be confident the books will arrive when they’re supposed to arrive, which is why, for this very ambitious set, we’re eliminating certain bottlenecks and chokepoints that often delay projects and sometimes even stop them dead in their tracks. Streamlined and focused production is the goal.

Q: Is there an option to get a slipcase?

A: To keep these editions as affordable as possible, they will be issued without a slipcase, but a Limited Edition slipcase is available as an optional upgrade and will ship at the same time as the books.

Q: Will there be special features?

Whenever possible, these editions will include an introduction or afterword by Robert McCammon to discuss the origins and inspirations for his writing. In addition, Mathias Clasen, the acclaimed Danish scholar of horror fiction, will contribute a scholarly essay for each book, exploring the themes of the story, the state of the world at the time the tale was written, and the work’s influence on the genre.

Q: Will these be signed?

A: Scheduling and pricing are two of the reasons there won’t be signature sheets for these books, but not the only reasons: McCammon has already signed signature sheets for Limited Editions for almost all of these titles over his long career, and he’s not getting any younger, so if we had to choose between him spending his time signing (potentially) 20,000 signature sheets over the next seven years or writing another book with that time… Well, we’re readers and fans first, so we want him to spend as much time writing as he wants!

All of that said: McCammon plans to sign copies of these books for The Alabama Booksmith, and they’ve generously agreed to have copies signed for my Lividian Tier Patreon supporters, supporters on the new Robert McCammon Library tier, and a very limited number of direct orders from Patreon supporters on other tiers.

So, there will be some signed copies, they just won’t be signed on a signature sheet.

Q: What’s the deal with the dust jackets?

A: These hardcovers will be issued with a double-sided reversible dust jacket to represent the edition’s unique position between a reader’s trade edition and a collector’s Limited Edition: one side will be printed with cover text in the style of a bookstore trade hardcover, while the other side will leave the artwork unobscured, like many of our Limited Editions. You can choose which version to display in your personal Robert McCammon Library.

Q: Who is the artist and why is there only one?

A: François Vaillancourt has been commissioned as the illustrator for the entire set, giving the collection a unified look and feel. Each book will feature full-color wraparound dust jacket artwork and approximately ten black-and-white interior illustrations.

Q: What about the Matthew Corbett books?

A: The plan is to tackle the entire series, creating the first completely unified set of this incredible series. We will deviate from our “publish the books in order” plan when we get to these titles, so all 10 will be published consecutively.

Q: I live somewhere on planet Earth! How can I order?

A: Excellent news! In addition to our own online store, we have booksellers all over the world including the UK, Germany, and Australia:

Q: I have other questions!

A: Please email Brian at brian@lividian.com and he’ll help you out!